In case you have trouble accessing the link to the other website, the main part of her post reads:

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[..] I had nothing to do with what was written in the article. The school I work for (Rydal Penrhos) sent a short note to the local paper thinking it might be nice publicity for the school, and the paper made up the rest. I can assure you that 1. I have indeed completed the thesis, which is why I am able to call myself Dr Brown, 2. I am perfectly capable of spelling Middle-earth, unlike the newspaper journalist, and 3. I know my Tolkien quotes. Goodness only knows where the journalist got it from.

I had no idea I was getting such stick online for this article. It's a bit sad, as I dedicated 6 years of my life to this study and I am very proud of my work. You are welcome to read the thesis - a copy is lodged at the university and in the British Library, as is standard practice.

A great pity that substandard journalism has undermined something I put my heart and soul into.

Anyone who cares to ask any questions about my work, and get actual answers from me, is welcome to contact me at sbrown@rydal-penrhos.com.

Dr Brown also asked me to quote from a private email to me, in order clarify a particular issue raised in the thread here at the ToRN forum:

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When I saw the article in the paper I just rolled my eyes and thought no more of it. There was no way that they would have printed a clarification and I thought it wasn't worth the bother. It is only a local paper and I never thought it would cause such a furore.

I was never interviewed by the journalist. As I said in the message, my school sent a short note and the journo took it from there. I did not use the word 'appalling' - I remember when I was asked about it by the marketing woman from school I said that his handwriting was sometimes difficult to read, which is what she wrote in the note to the paper. I also said that, to gain access to the private papers you have to get an academic reference and go through a process. The journalist turned that into "was given rare access". They then added this 'quote' at the end, which I am only too aware did not come from Prof Tolkien. To cap it all, they then spelled Middle-earth as Middle Earth. Sigh.

It's my experience that anonymous posters tend to forget that real people actually can get both personally hurt and wrongly accused (with widespread implications) for what is rashly written. Let this be a lesson to be considerate in our posts and to maintain a critical perspective in our reliance on sources.